Teams must play in a location that currently does not have an NFL team.
Although not every city is a big enough market to host a professional sports team, due to the freedom of simulation we can bring teams to locations all over the US. We currently have 32 teams that represent 30 different states in total. Some locations include Wichita, Springfield, and Carson City.
Team’s mascot cannot be another major professional sports team.
To establish unique identities, we placed a ban on any professional team mascot that plays in the
following leagues: NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, WNBA, CFL.
Even though some sports leagues have teams with the same name, we decided not to follow in that path and branch out on more team identities.
The team’s mascot cannot be a common college mascot.
To keep up the theme of brand uniqueness, we also prevented common college mascots from being a part of a team’s identity. Some examples are Bulldogs, Cougars, Wild Cats and Bruins.
Team’s mascot design cannot depict a race, culture, or ethnicity.
In order to avoid being insensitive, we chose not to make any realistic depictions of human beings when designing the logos. The San Antonio Outlaws are the only team to depict a human and the design purposely depicts an ambiguous character. We understand that some sports identities celebrate cultures and ethnicities however we chose to not follow in that path for this league.
Teams should have their own color scheme different from other teams.
While some teams in the AFA have similar color schemes, we tried to avoid giving any two teams the exact same colors. Teams that do have similar colors typically play in a different conference and there are a variety of colors differentiating each division rivalry.